Jovanović was educated at the Universities of Vienna, Berlin in agricultural and economic sciences, and Belgrade, where he stayed at the home of his father's relatives, the brothers Dimitrije and Matija Matić.

Abroad, he attended the lectures of Karl Heinrich Rau's son Ludwig at Hohenhaven Agricultural Academy and Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher in Vienna.

On the eve of the 1866 war against Austria, Mazzini said to Vladimir Jovanović that Italy should not rely on France in her struggle against the Habsburgs, but on the South Slavs under Vienna's yoke.

They demanded the restriction of the prince's power, the establishment of governmental rule, and the codification of human rights both in the civil and economic spheres.

Jovanović was also deeply involved when the liberals first wavered and gave up much of their original program and principles, accepting the autocracy of the Obrenović princes, who were restored to power at the request of the National Assembly.

The most typical characteristics of the so-called Omladina generation were that most of them had had a good foreign education (usually in Western Europe and Russia) and were all agreed on the need for the Serbs, who were scattered in four different states, to unite.